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MONTREAL — The photographs were spread out on a boardroom table, smiles on innocent faces captured and forever preserved as life before the horror.

Little Lin Jun riding a tricycle. Young Lin Jun working on a science project with classmates at private school. A beaming Lin Jun with his sister, 11 years his junior. An adult Lin Jun at Disney World in Hong Kong.

And a last, joyful family goodbye dinner in 2010 before Lin Jun left for Canada to further his education at Concordia University.

That is when the photos, and the joy, ends.

As the Chinese festival of Qingming, or tomb-sweeping day, approaches this week, the parents and sister of Lin, brutally murdered last May, offered, through their lawyers, to meet Tuesday with journalists for 20-minute interviews. The meetings were attended by two lawyers in their downtown offices; no cameras were allowed and questions about Lin’s death were off limits.

The interviews were the parents’ way, said the lawyers working pro bono, to pay respect to their only son, proudly boasting of his accomplishments, such as being chosen among thousands to be a volunteer for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. His accreditation, complete with a black-and-white photo of his face, is one of the treasures on display.

“It was very competitive and he was chosen,” said his mother, Du Zhigui.

He was also one of seven chosen from a class of 70 to work for a leading computer company, then be hired by Microsoft. He loved travel, reading and photography.

His mother sighs deeply, closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“It’s so hard for me to think about what happened,” she said. “It’s very hard to see his photos and his things.

“I don’t believe this has happened to Jun Lin.”

She hasn’t attended the preliminary hearing of Luka Magnotta, the man charged with murdering and dismembering her son. But her husband, Lin Di Ran, attended the first week in March, often overcome by grief. He sat out the second week, but said Tuesday he hopes to be present the final days next week.

“When we first arrived here, we were very upset and angry because we heard that Montreal was a very sick place,” Lin Diran said. “But with time, people have been very nice, so we’ve changed our opinion.”

After the preliminary hearing, Quebec Court Judge Lori-Renée Weitzman will decide whether there is enough evidence to send the case to trial. If so, it won’t take place until next year, and the family have yet to decide whether they want to be in the courtroom.

Magnotta, a 30-year-old Ontario native, was arrested last June in an Internet café in Berlin and brought back to Canada to be charged in connection with Lin’s death.

He is charged with first-degree murder, producing and distributing obscene material, using the mail system to send obscene material, causing an indignity to a body and harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of Parliament.

His lawyer, Luc Leclair, is trying to get more funding from the Quebec attorney-general’s office to pay for a psychiatric expert who can interview his client and write a report in English.